Piece of Shit Truck

As promised, a post about my piece of shit truck. I bought this truck a week ago from a co-worker. It is a beater. It's a 94 Ford Ranger with a ton of miles. It runs good so far, but it's going to need new tires. I've been on the lookout for such a truck for a while now. Actually, I was looking for a different kind of truck altogether. But, when my coworker heard me talking about it, he mentioned this truck that he had. And for the price, well, lets just say that if she dies on the road, that's where she's gonna sit. I thought it would be nice to have a beater around to drive to work. I've owned trucks before, but didn't really need to own them. Now I own an actual house (as opposed to a townhouse) and have needed one several times in the last year. Now I have one. I thought about getting a nice newer truck, but I'd rather Stacey got a new car. It's her turn, and she takes better care of vehicles than I do. So if anyones getting a new vehicle, she is. I'm gonna hold out for a 4 door Jeep Wrangler in a couple of years.

Trapped by Bad Weather

What a strange week it's been with the weather. I was out riding Wednesday in thin layers. Tonight I shut down the entire shipping operation at work to make sure everyone (including myself) could get home safely. We were planning on heading to Belmond this weekend to see my parents. That ain't gonna happen. Looks like next weekend we'll get to though. Mom is totally stoked to see the girls. It's funny how when you're a new parent you don't want to be apart from your kids. Then you spend about two years of sleepless night, diaper changing, snot wiping, bottle feeding, temper tantrum chaos and you can't wait for someone to take over even for just a couple hours. I know, boo hoo. (Shut up, you're welcome to come over anytime. Wait, no you're not.)

Now instead of going to see grandparents, we're probably going to be trapped in the house all weekend. And if you know me, trapped in the house is not all that enjoyable. I love my family, but I don't do well at "sitting around". I'm a lot like my dad that way. He can't sit still for 5 minutes. You can see him getting antzy. I think of him when I hear the stories about airplanes sitting on runways for hours. He'd be in jail, I'm sure of it. The headlines would read something like "Northern Iowa Ag Business Owner Faces Felony Charges For Throwing a Flight Attendant Through the Window of a Taxiing Jetliner. The Attendant is listed in Critical condition with multiple injuries resulting from the fall and is recovering from surgery from having her PA microphone surgically removed from her ass."

I'm looking forward to spending the whole weekend at home with the kids, don't get me wrong. But I bet I'll watch Baby Einstein MacDonald (at Mara's request of course) at least a dozen times. Oh well, I stopped by HyVee on my way home. Got a case of Guinness and a Jumbo bag of Pizza Rolls. Can't hear the kids wake up in the middle of the night if you're passed out in the basement. I hope DCFS isn't monitoring my Blog.

Stay tuned tomorrow for a piece on "My Piece of Shit Truck."

Beautiful night for a ride

Gotta switch gears here (no pun intended, you'll understand as you read) from kids to bikes. It was so nice out tonight I just had to get a good ride in. I finally have my latest project dialed in, geometrically anyway. I took a bike I've ridden the crap out of and restored it. It's year 2000 Specialized Stumpjumper. Nice bike back in the day. Had front suspension, XTR drivetrain, aluminum frame. This winter I stripped her down, painted her, put some dirt drop bars on her, and replaced the 3x9 drivetrain to a singlespeed. For my family and friends who dont' ride, a 3x9 drivetrain is what you would call a 27 speed. Only that's a misnomer. There's not actually 27 different gear ratios, some of them overlap, so it's really a 3x9. Now, it's a 1x1. No shifting. Also, I took the suspension fork off and replaced it with steel rigid fork. Just pure simple, ridgid, singlespeed. Anway, now that it's dialed in where the seat height, and the handlebar height are perfect, I really enjoyed riding it tonight. I got into some sloppy shit that would have clogged up my 3x9 drivetrain. All the justification I needed. All in all I rode about 20 miles. Went by 3 or 4 bars and managed to keep riding by. It was tough, but I did it. I can't wait to get out again, maybe tomorrow to ride my new/old rig.

Crazy week

I've been too busy / lazy to post. Stacey's brother and his wife came to the house on Saturday to watch the kids while we went out to dinner with the neighbors. Ellen has decided to develop an attitude. She's a lot like me in the sense that she doesn't like crowds, or company. Makes it suck sometimes for us, but you have to appreciate her independence. Mara on the other hand has just been a blast. She's trying to talk, and does all the animal noises. We had a good time out without the kids and had a relaxing Sunday. Good stuff just hanging at home with the kids. Headed to Belmond this weekend. Mom is super psyched to see the kids. Should be a good time.

Happy Valentines Day!!!

It's Ellen's first Valentines Day and Mara's second. Like most things us parents get a kick out of, they couldn't care less. Stacey went to work early today, so I got them dressed up in Valentine's-esque clothes. I did my best. Mara was a peach this morning. Ellen, well she was Ellen. I always say, if every baby was like Ellen, we'd have one hell of a population problem. She's always happy. Gotta go to work now. Till next time....

Man it has just been stupid cold outside. I couldn't stand another minute indoors this week so I talked my buddy Norbert (doesn't take much to talk him into riding) into going for a spin on Wednesday night. Started out looking like it was going to be a really bad idea. My hands were getting numb early on. Then we hit the Mt. Mercy college campus hills. Hills used to be my specialty, but Norbert was stomping me. I should add that Norbert is a roadie. If a roadie could be cool, he's a cool roadie. He'd prefer beer over coffee after a ride (but not before, roadie). Anyway, he was stomping me but he waited for me and pushed me to do more reps than I would have had I been riding on my own. We finished the ride spinning around town for a while, followed by aspre's ride Guinness pints at Dublin City Pub. The pic above is of our bikes inside the Pub. Pretty cool of them to let us bring them in.

If that weren't stupid enough, I had to take my van in to get a tire fixed yesterday. I didn't line up a ride to work, figured I'd just hop on the bike and ride the 2 miles from the shop to work. That was at 8am. I think it was about 1pm when my testicles finally came back out of my body cavity. It was fucking cold. Too cold, even for me. I had snotcicles forming on my snotcicles. Needless to say, I hitched a ride back to the shop when my van was done.

Taking the girls to Des Moines this weekend. Stacey's work Xmas party tonight, and her parents and her brother live there. Should be a nice time. Looks to be warming up next week a little. Get out there and ride.

Time to get moving

Now that NFL season is over, a cold spell is coming to an end, and spring is quickly approaching. I need to get my fat ass into shape. I was giving Mara a bath last night. She thought it was funny to splash the water and make all the little duckies fly everywhere. Well in the meantime she soaked me to the bone. So I sat up on the toilet lid next to the tub and pulled the bottom of my shirt up to wipe my face. That's when it hit me. I can't see my belly button anymore. It's finally come to the point where the flab from my gut has completely consumed my belly button. How did I let this happen? Stacey will point to the 10 empty Guinness bottles from Sunday, but I say, I've been drinking beer like that for the past, oh let's see, 15 years or so. I'm not riding enough.

I've had the girls by myself after work the last two nights while Stacey works on my early retirement. Last night was tough but I was ready for it tonight. I was all ready to make dinner. Got Mara fed, got Ellen fed, new diapers, into pajamas. One to sleep then the other. I'm not finding it all that difficult yet, but I gotta give the single Moms of the world credit, at least the end is in sight for me. After all that I had to go clean off the drive way. I could have just shoveled it. It was light enough, but I have this snow-blower in the garage, I have to justify owning it so I used it. I'm not one of those guys that enjoys getting outside and working. I'd rather get outside and play. I'm not lazy, I just have better things to do than clear snow and mow lawns and shit like that. I miss that part of owning a townhouse.

Tomorrow is bike night. Can't wait. Time to work off an entire football season of Guinness and chicken wings. Wish me luck. I ride past a lot of bars. It's going to be hard to resist.

Bear Down

Well the Superbowl came and went. The Bears lost like everyone thought except for me, Clary, and Uncle G. We had the neighbors over and Roy and Monique showed up for some food and libations. To no one's surprise, especially my wife's, I partook in more libations than everyone else. She looked at me funny when I asked for another beer with 1 minute left in the 4th. I don't always ask her to get me a beer, so settle down feminist extremists, but I had Josey on my lap and we were both very comfy.

Ellen was sleeping when everyone got here. When she woke up, she plain freaked out. We've seen this from her before and dismissed it as a fluke, now we know she doesn't like crowds too much. Especially when she's tired. Mara was great for the most part. Just ran around and played. Watched a couple videos on the other TV and looked at me funny when I got upset.

I guess there's always next year. I always hate the end of the football season. Sure there's college basketball, and baseball will be starting up soon. But I just love NFL football.

GO BEARS!!!!!!

So it's Superbowl weekend. Having just moved to Iowa from the Chicago area, I'm really missing Chicago this week. There are some Bear's fans here, but not like there obviously. I went to a few games at Soldier field while I lived there with my friend Clary. I met Clary in college. We've been great friends ever since. We're both life long Bears fans and talk about the Bears everytime we're on the phone. Just doesn't seem right to me that we won't be watching the Superbowl together. But that's life I guess. I'll be raising my glass to ya Clary. I know Indy is favored but I like Chicago's chances. Hope I'm not eating my words on Monday along with our Superbowl party leftovers.

Night Ride and New Shoes

I went for a ride last night. It was snowing and the wind died down. It was beautiful. The snow crunching under the tires. Peaceful, unlike my house an hour earlier. I hit a trail in a park and was able to shut my lights off and let the white from the snow guide me. I'm about 25 miles under my January goal so I'm going to have to make that up in February. I gotta get my miles in, just a personal need. Mara got some new shoes yesterday. She couldn't possibly care less. Dora the Exporer was on TV so that was where her priorities were. Ellen let me put her slippers on in between her rollover attempts this morning. They both looked pretty hip so I took some photos.